Cloud Computing For Dummies

Learn what cloud computing is and how it differs from traditional approaches. This book takes you through the options, what they can do for your company, how to choose the best approach for your business, and how to build a strategy. You'll learn about managing and securing cloud services and get down-to-earth advice about planning your move to the cloud.

Learn how to:

Understand the benefits and challenges, how to select a service, and what's involved in getting it up and running

Analyze how much a cloud data center can save your company in power, labor, property, and other expenses

Understand issues involved in cloud management and how governance is defined inside the cloud

Recognize the assorted risks and how to determine acceptable risk levels

Part III: Examining the Cloud ElementsChapter 10: Seeing Infrastructure as a ServiceChapter 11: Exploring Platform as a ServiceChapter 12: Using Software as a ServiceChapter 13: Understanding Massively Scaled Applications and Business ProcessesChapter 14: Setting some Standards

Part IV: Managing the CloudChapter 15: Managing and Securing Cloud ServicesChapter 16: Governing the CloudChapter 17: Virtualization and the CloudChapter 18: Managing Desktops and Devices in the CloudChapter 19: Service Oriented Architecture and the CloudChapter 20: Managing the Cloud Environment

Part V: Planning for the CloudChapter 21: Banking on Cloud EconomicsChapter 22: Starting Your Journey to the Cloud

Read a Chapter

Chapter 12 Using Software as a Service

In This Chapter

▶ Looking at the origins of SaaS: Salesforce.com▶ Understanding how the SaaS model works▶ Understanding the economics and the ecosystem

"When did Software as a Service get its start?" might sound like a straightforward question, but it isn't. In one way, you could say that when timesharing systems were all the rage more than 30 years ago, all software was delivered to customers as a service. Mainframe systems were simply too expensive for most companies to buy their own systems. A couple of decades later, minicomputers, servers, and personal computers changed the dynamics of the market. Economically, it was feasible for any Tom, Dick, and Harriet to own their own systems and the software. Not all software moved to an internal model however. (Software such as ADP's payroll system, for example, remained Software as a Service.)

Two key events converged to create the model that we now call Software as a Service (SaaS):

✓ First, the Internet became a commercial platform.

✓ Second, software costs and complexities became so difficult that running, upgrading, and managing software become too complex for many companies to manage. This was especially true for small- and mediumsized companies that didn't want the expenses of managingall the components. These companies were the first to embrace this new generation of SaaS. Today, SaaS is the most mature area of cloud computing. SaaS gained initial traction with the customer relationship management (CRM) market and has expanded into others - particularly the collaboration market and the enabling tools and management environments. In this chapter, we explain what SaaS is, talk about its business model, and discuss the types of vendors that are in the market today.

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Judith Hurwitz, Robin Bloor, Marcia Kaufman, Fern Halper

Definition of Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is the next stage in evolution of the internet. The cloud in cloud computing provides the means through which everything - from computing power to computing infrastructure, applications, business processes to personnal collaboration - can be delivered to you as a service wherever and whenever you need.